"You are late."

That calm, cool, almost placid voice slammed into her like a rockslide. The young girl bolted upright in her bed, hair a disheveled mess haloing her head.

"Oh no...papa." She had already, on her very first day, let her father down by being late. "I'm so sorry papa!" The russet haired youngling threw back the covers and quickly started her morning routine. The slip she wore to bed was quickly replaced by clean crisp undergarments and followed in a blur of motion by her training uniform. All in olive and sage the tones were rich and the material fine. The shoulder length fall of hair was brushed, perhaps a bit quickly, and then braided before being spun intricately at the back of her head and pinned in place.

"Ryari, how do you expect to reach the pinnacles of Earth Bending if you are going to be late?" her father queried. "You are eight years old now, daughter. I know that I have taught you more discipline than this." His voice was not disappointed, which hurt all that much more to the young girl. He wasn't disappointed, she knew, because he had expected it. That was the type of man her papa was. He was stolid, and stalwart, but he expected the least out of people just so that he would never be disappointed. However his expectations of his students were extremely high. Ryari happened to be both, starting this morning. The day after her eighth birthday.

She opened the door to her small room and bowed to her father. "I am sorry papa. I will make sure that I'm not late any more." She consciously had to keep herself from shaking out of fear and sorrow. It was because of this that she gave a little squeek of surprise when his hand rested upon her shoulder lightly.

"I love you, my little Ari." he whispered. The smile that broke across the young girl's face was completely genuine as she threw her arms around her papa's neck and replied back fervently. "I love you too papa."

——

The student bowed to her teacher, formally, as he awarded her the highest form of praise that he had the right to. A small medallion signifying her rise to the next level of her training. Training that could no longer be provided by her own teacher. Training that exceeded her father's knowledge. The now almost adult Earth Bender would go to one of the larger Cities and continue learning there. It had taken her eight years to learn all that her father had to teach, and while he was considered a master here, in their village, she would surpass that someday and she would need the training found elsewhere.

"Thank you, Master..." she stated softly before standing erect once more. He strode forward and embraced her, her reaction at once to hug her father back.

"I am no longer your Master, my Little Ari." he whispered softly into her ear. "I love you." She had learned the bending arts from her father, and the other students could tell that the two moved alike, despite her graceful olive-skinned form and his more stocky build. What he had gained in power, she had made up for in finesse. Even so, many of her techniques had a strange forceful gesturing behind them. Some students made fun of her, for she had been slow to learn at first, unable to pick up even the basics for nearly five months.

The frustration at that had driven her eight year old self to the edges of frustration and well beyond. While the other students progressed in their studies she had instead been set on menial tasks to gain focus and hone her attention.

She had done everything her father had asked for her, even if it had driven her to tears. She couldn't count the number of smashed fingers, cut hands, bruised arms and legs, and even broken bones she had obtained in eight years, but she was here now, the better for it.

"I love you too, Papa." she whispered back and took the small bronze medallion from him. She hugged him again and turned to face the other students. They had learned quickly, but they had plateaued in power. She had eventually surpassed them to continue her training, and eventually even the best of students in the village had been left behind her. She had taken private lessons with her fathers, learning some of the more difficult techniques.Eventually, three days after turning sixteen he had pulled her aside to explain that he could teach her no more.

So it was that she stood here today, one week later, getting ready to start her own journey into the life of the City. She hadn't decided where to go, there were plenty of places bigger than here. SO it was that shortly after turning sixteen, the young bender set off on her journey.

——

Emerald green eyes stared at the ceiling, vaulted high above. She was on her back...where? Her eyes rolled from side to side as her thoughts raced. "What was I doing?" the voice rang out in her head. It was her own and it was coming from inside her skull. "Why am I remembering the events of my past?" Her eyes caught a flash of movement, but it didn't register into her conscious thoughts until the tremors shook through the ground and then her. "Oh no..." she finally managed to vocalize.

There had been an attack. She had gone home on her birthday to show her father what she had learned. Her training had been diligent and ever going and she had soaked in everything that she possibly could. She was as good as many of the soldiers, and could probably have joined the army, had she desired.

She didn't think this little village would ever see an attack. Not her home. So when the first volley had demolished many of the buildings and left several of the villagers standing in shock at as the flames consumed it, the surprise at seeing a cloud of dust rise up and smother the flames was somewhat startling.

Ryari, now nearing her twentieth birthday, would never really be considered an exceptional beauty. She was lithe and toned, the musculature of her body was defined but she was far from masculine. There were prettier women than she, but she didn't mind. She was a bender, a martial artist. It had taken her fifteen years to become as good as she was. Now she had to help protect her home from invaders.

Another sphere of fire arched across the land and she saw several of her father's students rush forward and stomp down upon the ground, noting the technique as a common one her father taught. Apparently the novice benders were strong enough working together to raise barriers. They wouldn't have enough time unless...

A blur of of rich brown hair and green, dust coloured clothing was what she became, pivoting on her forward foot and driving the heel of her other down in front of her, all the while forcing the stone beneath her to her will. It jumped up and buttressed against the wall of the novice benders, adding it's strength. With an ear-splitting boom the sphere impacted with the wall and the dust that rained down atop her nearly made her cough. It seemed that the very air around them was singed.

"Go! Find Sensei Bo'Song!" came the forced cry through clenched teeth. She would have to hold this until her father came with all of the students.

——

The aftermath was an atrocity. She had seen many of her friends and fellow villagers lose their lives this day. She was scraped, battered, bruised, tired, hungry, and most importantly, she was lost.

The village held no semblance of its former self. None of the buildings still stood. She called out for her father several times hoping beyond hope that he had made it where others had not. "Papa!" she cried out, her voice already grown hoarse from dust and lack of moisture. It sounded like no more than a croak to her, she imagined that nobody more than a few feet would be able to hear it, but still she kept on calling. She couldn't give up.

Her head snapped around and her vision locked onto a pile of rubble that had once been a store that sold fruit. Movement. She was certain. Reaching up with grimy hands, which normally wouldn't bother her but for the fluids that she was certain were more than water, she attempted to wipe some of the tiredness from her eyes and succeeded only in leaving muddy streaks across her face.

"Papa?" She felt like that little girl again, and she wanted nothing more than to just be held by her father. To know that she was safe.

"Ari?" came the faint voice from amidst the pile. "Is that my Little Ari?" no sooner had the words reached her ears then she was bending the rubble aside, away from her father. He was a mess, trapped beneath the stone, his legs crushed.

"Oh Papa..." she whispered, tears flowing from her cheeks. Nearly twenty-three and still calling her father papa. Others might laugh, but she didn't care. As she started to move the boulder a strangled, and pained, cry stopped her.

"You..." the sharp breath drawn between his teeth reached her as a hiss. "I'm sorry, Ari. You cannot move that." He lay, defeated, in the dirt and rubble around him, and she knelt at his side, taking hold of his hand. "I have watched you defend your home, Little Ari. You have made me proud..."

Tears flowed freely down the woman's face. She thought back on the dreams she had when she had been rendered unconscious by the initial attack. Training with her father and growing up knowing that he was always there. "Papa...please...don't leave." she whispered, burying her face in his tunic, uncaring as to the dust and ash covering it.

A hand came up to stroke her hair, uncaring as to the fact that it was completely a mess. "My Little Ari...you must go now. You have done all that you can for this place. Find a new home, live..." she could, from her resting place upon his chest, hear his heart slowly fading. The beats becoming fewer with more time in between. "I love you, Ryari. You have made me proud..."

She cried then. Wept tears of frustration, sorrow, and anger. The Fire Nation had taken everything from her. Her village, her friends, her father. Why? Why did this have to be like this? Her grief caused her to lose her sense of surroundings or perhaps she would have heard the whine of the sphere as it plummeted toward her, landing nearly on top of the rubble surrounding her. The ensuing blast drove her backward, her feet unable to touch the ground. Her movement was stopped harshly by the collapsed wall of another nearby building.

A few broken ribs would have been something that she would have been able to deal with. Even the scrapes and bruises would have healed. However what happened next caught her in complete surprise. Never in a million years would she have figured that something like what happened would ever do so...

A second blast rocked her nearly immediately after the first and a sharp, debilitating pain shot through her right shoulder. A scream was held tightly between her clenched teeth and compressed lips but at the severe and sudden pain it erupted from her in a keening cry. She tried to move her right arm, even as she felt the warmth running from her shoulder and down over her torso.

A single word ran through her mind. "No....no...no...no..." it continued as she slumped to her knees and grasped where her right arm had been with her left hand. The crimson warmth of her life's energy flowing over her fingers. It was her last thought before she dove into the depths of unconsciousness. "Nononononononononono....."

——-

Her eyes fluttered open and her mind seemed mired in thought. What was she doing alive? Who would possibly have saved her? She attempted to sit upright but she couldn't move her right arm. Why? What was wrong with her. Hands. Why were there hands on her? Why were they touching her?

The woman couldn't help herself, she struggled with every ounce she had, but it wasn't enough. Gently, yet firmly, the hands pressed her back down. "Easy. Be easy. You are safe." the voice was warm and matronly and reminded her of her mother. Thoughts of her mother, who had passed when she was five, inevitably led to thoughts of her father, who had raised her since then. This led to many things but eventually to the attack.

The person who had held her down spooned some sort of broth into her and she soon found herself becoming drowsy and unable to ask the questions running through her head. Why had she been saved? What would happen to her now? She wanted those questions answered, but sleep once more overcame her.

——

Weeks had passed since the attack. She had been helped by refugees who had also survived, though there weren't many. Some of them were children, and fewer still were the elderly.

Ryari had been resting and recuperating the entire time. Bed-ridden. They knew her, knew who her father was, and they had seen what had happened. She had been given the best medical attention that could be offered and would live, but obviously nothing could be done about her arm.

Thus, mostly healed of her grievous wounds, she set out in search of someway to pay back the Fire Nation for what it was they had done to her. Taking her life, her father, and her arm. She practiced her bending every available moment, altering her training to include more leg work and to accommodate the lack of her right arm. Her twenty fourth birthday had come and gone during her time spent in the stupor of post-injury healing.

She would find them, and she would most definitely make them pay. Though once of an advanced level of her bending arts she now would have to teach herself to do everything with just her one arm now. She wasn't a novice, by far, but she wouldn't consider herself adept until she retrained.

——

Two years later, the one-armed bender's arrival in the City had been low-key. She rested now upon the lip of a fountain, fingertips of her only hand trailing idly in the water. A smile played across her lips as the goldfish in the small pool nibbled at her fingertips. "If only you were koi, I might have taken one of you to my new home. I used to have some of them growing up. You're still rather pretty though..." she stated softly to herself. Her tunic was apparently made of silk and had the symbol of her father's school embroidered upon the left breast. It was the darkest of sage, almost black. The trim, along the edges of the cloth, was all in olive. It matched her sun-darkened skin wonderfully and set the colour of her emerald gaze blazing from her features. Any who looked close enough would notice that where her right arm should have been was wrapped tightly in bandages at the shoulder; The sleeveless tunic displaying the obvious lack for all to see. Her hair, the colour of rich turned soil, was braided tightly and neatly, despite her handicap.

The past two years she had spent fighting the fire nation in whatever manner she could but still she was just one person. She hoped that there would come a point where she wouldn't have to fight alone anymore, and she had helped and been helped in the past. She had also honed her Earthbending more to accommodate her lack of right arm, but it still wasn't perfect. Many things were still difficult for her to perform and some were still impossible. There would come a day when she attained her old rank of Adept, it just hadn't come yet...